Time Curtain

More about the book

The work is a critique of religion, in general (and Christianity, in particular), alleging that it is nothing more than a random composite of fanciful tales invented by the priests and, as such, a cultural dysfunction, that the old socialist cliché, "Religion is the opiate of the people," is an astute appraisal of this vestigial relic, and that all devotees are misguided victims, emotional homunculi, seduced by "priestly lies," and so addicted to this "poppy madness" that "deprogramming" is virtually impossible. While the content of this book is couched in casual style laced with caustic wit, it is fundamentally a serious work . . . not to be taken lightly. A special feature makes this book rather unique. It is a collection of reflections, under the generic caption "radical ruminations," of one St. William of the Orphic Cross at Salem Monastery (shades of Søren Kierkegaard's Judge William, but without "the leap of faith"), which I have supposedly discovered, proofed, and arranged in their proper order. This fictional feature, a find of "momentous import," lends a mysterious air to the manuscript, characteristic of the aura of religion itself. There is another feature, a novel turn, one that may not be readily apparent to the reader, but even ally a facsimile of the alleged nature of religion. That is to say, in other words, the manuscript . . . itself an invention . . . is simply the embodiment of its own critique.